Page 40 of Lady Waldrey’s Gardening Almanac for Cultivating Scandal

It had been a relief to hear it from the lady’s own lips—she’d never loved him at all.

CHAPTER 14- CANDACE

From the Quentin Daily-

Countess flees in disgrace from ballroom! Rumors swirl about the real reason she left—was it a broken slipper as she claimed, or something far worse?

“Gin is not for me,” Candace lamented, her words half-muffled by the cold compress draped across her face.

She sprawled reclined upon the leather sofa before her bedroom fireplace. A fire crackled lowly in the grate. Every so often, Hortense bustled in to tsk sympathy or judgement in Candace’s direction and to throw a sprig of dried eucalyptus on the flames.

“My father always claimed gin was medicinal, that it cured regrets and emotional malaise,” Vera replied in a low tone—she’d already been upbraided twice for speaking too loudly.

“In this case, the cure was far worse than the initial disease. I can’t believe you recommended it.”

“I was joking! But at least it got your mind off things for a while.”

“On the contrary—I can barely tell which is the cause of my headache—the liquor or Shelbourne. At least with the gin, there’s an end in sight to my suffering. Hortense says I’ll feel much more myself by tomorrow.”

“One wonders if a full day of this suffering was worth an afternoon of forgetting.”

“I can emphatically tell you it was not.”

Vera’s lips trembled in a smile. “I feel keen sympathy for your suffering—both from Shelbourne and from the gin—but I must say that you look rather ridiculous just now.”

“Must you?”

In true dramatic fashion, Candace had thrown herself down, one foot still in its silk stocking, propped on a needlepoint footstool, the other bare and stretched out on the sofa toward Vera.

In that position, with her head tilted back against the cushions, a light-blue towel over her face, Candace looked like a porcelain doll carelessly tossed down by some giant child in the throes of a tantrum.

“It’s nice to see that you are human—that the flawless rose of noble society sometimes appears as less than perfect.”

“Flawless?” Candace snorted. “I’ve never been that. Nor am I the rose of society any longer.”

“I’m dearly sorry that I missed you testing your theory of gin.” Vera’s voice was even and sympathetic, but a slight waver at the end of her sentence hinted at her mirth.

Candace’s long fingers rose, pinched the edge of the towel, and lifted it.

Candace peered out at her. “Are you laughing at me?”

“Not…precisely?”

Candace arched her eyebrow, then winced and dropped the towel back into place. “I cannot even be miffed at you—it hurts my head too much to manage the accompanying expression.”

Vera laughed lowly in that rasping way of hers. Candace couldn’t help it, her lips rose begrudgingly in response to the sound. She winced again—everything hurt.

“I heard that you danced upon the table at one point.”

Candace scoffed, the puff of air ruffling the edge of the towel. She slid it back into place. “There’s no need to make up stories at my expense. I’m already thoroughly embarrassed without your added fictional license.”

“It’s not a lie—I heard it from Canterbury himself.”

Candace jerked upright, floundering with the sudden pounding at her temples and the nausea that roiled in her stomach. Finally, she flung the towel from her eyes to squint at her friend. “What?”

Vera blinked. “Canterbury. You do remember he called upon you yesterday afternoon, don’t you?”

She clasped the towel to her face and groaned. Now that Vera mentioned it, snatches of memories winged toward her like deranged birds. Her complimenting the sturdiness of the furniture and climbing upon the low table to demonstrate her point. Her leaning forward over said table to inhale the sandwiches Mrs. Penn brought her—the best she’d ever tasted. At one point, she’d told Canterbury she should have married him.